


Dress Fit For a Fairy Princess

by Volixia666



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-17 04:57:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16968105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Volixia666/pseuds/Volixia666
Summary: Julian's babysitting duties were interrupted by yet another medical emergency. It's up to Garak to take on the daring mission of babysitting a young Molly O'Brien.





	Dress Fit For a Fairy Princess

**Author's Note:**

> Set not too long before the Season 2 episode "Cardassians". Molly's age may be off by a year or two.

       

Situations like these always had an interesting lead up. A crazy chain of events leading to an unexpected result. The day was normal. Keiko was visiting Bajor, and Miles needed someone to watch Molly, so Julian was selected for babysitter. Normal enough. Garak had been aware of this, and was half expecting their usual lunch to be canceled, due to Miles’s...biases. Perfectly understandable ones, if Garak was to be honest for once. Not that he would say it out loud. No, those thoughts were better left unsaid.

Then of course, there had been a brawl in Quarks with multiple injuries, spilt acid, and someone’s pet had gone missing. It wasn’t even midday.

Julian showed up at his shop while carrying Molly, looking quite frazzled. “I hope you’re not busy.”

Garak looked around his empty shop dramatically, then back at Julian with a smile. “It does certainly seem as though things are a little slow at the moment.”

“Excellent.” Julian put Molly down. “I need to go take care of some people, so you’re gonna have to stay with my dear friend Garak.”

Garak stood up and raised a finger. “How bold of you, my dear doctor. Not even asking if I would?”

Julian gave Garak a rather done look. “You’re going to because I’m asking, and I dare say you owe me at this point.

Garak chuckled. Well, Julian wasn’t _quite_ wrong. Still. There was a slight problem. “I understand you have quite a bit of faith in me. But this _is_ Miles’s daughter. Not yours.”

“Yes.” Julian was about to say something when his comm went off.

“Odo to Bashir.”

Julian sighed and tapped his badge. “This is Bashir. I’ll be down in a moment. Bashir out.” He tapped again. Then looked at Molly. “So Molly. This is Garak.” He looked at Garak. “Garak, this is Molly.”

“Wanna stay with you.” The girl said to Julian.

“I know, but you can’t because I have to go take care of some people who got hurt.” Julian gestured at Garak. “I know he looks scary, but he’s not _that_ bad.” Julian stood up and looked at Garak. “Hopefully I won’t be gone too long. If I am, she takes a nap at three. I’d suggest just using your own replicator for food due to the situation. though maybe find something more from Earth. Mac and cheese. Or something. She has her bag of stuff to do.”

 Julian’s comm went off again. “Odo to Bashir.” Odo’s voice was even grumpier than usual.

 Julian tapped it. “I’m coming, I’m coming.” He said quickly. “Thanks Garak!”

“Ta-Ta.” Garak said, waving his fingers at Julian as his doctor ran out of his shop. This was a terrible idea that was going to backfire on the both of them. However, it seemed Julian didn’t have many other options. Molly waved bye at Julian, then looked at Garak.

“You’re big…” She said, sounding on the verge of tears. Garak gave a slight sigh. He was not exactly skilled at dealing with children. Particularly children of a non-Cardassian species.

“Perhaps.” Garak said. Oh dear. This had already gotten, as Julian would say, _awkward_. He kneeled down, his knees protesting. But getting on the girl’s level was likely the best move. “Now, how old are you?”

Molly held up five fingers. Of course he already knew that. But it seemed like as good of an icebreaker as any.

“I see. And what do you enjoy doing for entertainment?”

“Drawing.” She said quietly. She then noticed something behind Garak. The child’s eyes went wide. “Is that a fairy princess dress?” She asked in wonder.

Garak looked behind him to see what she was asking about. Ah. A dress he had started work on for the fun. He’d found a design similar to it in one of the new intergalactic fashion books one of the dabo girls left it. It was intriguing, and enough of a challenge that it gave him something to do. The dress was a light green base fabric, with silver embroidery on the bust giving the appearance of silvery vines. A slit in the center of the skirt revealed multiple layers of a puffy lighter green, nearly white, fabric that made the skirt wider, rather than fitting closely to the wearers legs.

He was vaguely familiar with the concept of princess. Fairy, now that was a new word. His translator was only giving him what the child was actually saying, rather than a translation. He looked back at Molly. “It’s certainly a dress fitting for a princess. Though what type of princess is a _fairy_ princess?”

Molly gasped. “You don’t know what a fairy is?!” She opened her little backpack, and pulled out a drawing, then showed Garak a crudely drawn picture. “That’s a fairy!”

Garak looked at it, quite amused. It was certainly…something. From what he could tell it was a humanoid with protrusions on its back. “And what does a fairy do, exactly?”

Molly became very excited. “There’s a bunch of different fairies! There’s wind fairies, and pretty snow fairies that make snow! Though I’ve never seen real snow before. I’ve seen holos of it before and it’s really pretty!”

“The…appearance of it is quite aesthetically pleasing.” Garak agreed in a roundabout way. Snow looked nice from afar, yet the appeal was immediately gone as soon as the chill set in.

Molly gave him a curious look. “You use a lot of _big_ words. Like Julian.”

Garak chuckled. “Perhaps our vast vocabulary is one aspect of our friendship. Though I’m curious little one, you say I’m using big words. Is your translator giving you words you understand, or words that exist in your tongue, but you don’t quite grasp the meaning of yet?”

“The second one? Mommy uses big words sometimes. She explains them though.” Molly looked at the dress again. “Hmm…I think that’s a Spring fairy princess.”

“Spring?” Garak asked. “Ah yes, you mean the Earth season, don’t you?”

Molly nodded happily. “There are fairies for seasons too! There’s Summer fairies and Fall fairies, and Winter fairies and Spring fairies! They help make the seasons! Spring fairies make the flowers bloom, and melt the snow!”

The child was certainly excited about the topic. Perhaps babysitting wasn’t entirely that difficult. A second after that thought, Molly suddenly became shy again. Uh-oh. “Yes dear?” Garak asked.

“Can…I…Um…” The child then spoke rapidly. “CanItrythedressonprettyplease?”

It took Garak a moment to process what she said. But when he did, he gave another chuckle. “It would be a bit big on you, child.”

“I _know_.” Molly said in a nearly petulant tone. “But I can stand on a stool, right? Please? Pretty please? I’ll tell you more about fairies!”

Well. If it kept the one topic they were able to discuss going, he supposed he could allow it.

~~~

Several hours later, a tired Keiko arrived on the promenade. The trip was nice, but she was about ready to collapse. For now though, it was time to pick up Molly as Miles was too busy arguing with Julian about leaving their daughter with Garak. She’d have to speak with Miles later. From what she’d seen, Garak wasn’t too bad. A bit of a hermit, except with Julian, but there were several people on the station who praised his work. And honestly, it wasn’t Julian’s fault there was a medical emergency.

Keiko wasn’t sure what she was expecting when she walked into Garak’s shop, but she was pleased to see Molly colouring while on the floor while Garak was making adjustments to a dress. The Cardassian looked over. “Ah, Mrs. O’Brien.” He said cheerfully.

“Mommy!” Molly said out loud, dropping her markers, jumping up, then immediately ran at Keiko. Keiko caught Molly and with practiced ease put her on her hips.

“Hello sweetie.” Keiko said. She looked at Garak. “I hope she wasn’t too much trouble.”

“No trouble at all.” Garak replied with a smile. “I believe your daughter just may have the makings of a designer. With a bit more practice of course.”

“Oh?” Keiko looked at Molly. “What have you been working on?”

“Put me down and I can show you.” Molly said with a grin. Keiko put Molly down then cracked her back. Molly was going to be too big for that soon. Her daughter ran to the pile of papers, grabbed them, then ran back to Keiko. “Here you go Mommy!”

Keiko took the papers, and looked at them with a smile. “You made all these?”

“Yep!”

There were about fifteen pieces of paper, with a different dress on each of them, of varying styles. Some looking similar to what was in Garak’s shop, and some looking like what was in Molly’s storybooks. On the upper right hand corner was Molly’s attempt at writing. One dress design saying “FALL FARERI”. Another saying “SNO FARERI”. Underneath it was a strange script in another handwriting. Keiko looked at Garak. “You wrote on these?”

“Molly was curious what the Cardassi equivalent of each fairy type was.” Garak explained. “Then was curious about how it was spelled. It’s all a rough translation of course. Fairies are not something we have on Cardassia.”

“Cardassi looks so cool Mommy!” Molly said excitedly, then added bashfully. “But not as cool as Japanese of course.”

Garak moved closer to Keiko and spoke quietly. “I completely understand if to avoid conflict with Mr. O’Brien’s…biases, you would like to remove the Cardassi from these pages before she shows them to him.”

Garak sounded earnest about it, and it made Keiko wonder exactly how used to this he was. She smiled at Garak. “I understand your concern. Don’t worry.” As tempting as it might be, it wouldn’t be a good example for Molly.

Garak put his hands in the air and stepped back. “By all means. I will trust your judgement, Mrs. O’Brien.”

“Keiko. Just call me Keiko.” She added. “Mrs. O’Brien is so stuffy.” It also never felt like it quite suited her. Molly looked at Garak.

“Show her the holopictures!” She said.

“The holopictures?” Keiko asked. Garak chuckled, and pulled out a pad.

“I believe you’ll enjoy this.” He said while handing it to her. Keiko opened it up, and immediately smiled. There were a bunch of images of Molly trying on the various dresses in the shop. From the light green one Garak had been working n when she entered, to an elegant looking red one. Molly’s bright pink shirt showing in all of them.

“I stood on a stool and Garak put the dresses over me! Some of them are really soft.”

Keiko handed the padd back to Garak. “You look great in them sweetie.”

Garak accepted the padd. “I can send you the images. I will warn you, she has become _quite_ fond of the green one.”

“It’s really pretty, Mommy.” Molly said. Keiko looked it over. It was definitely meant more for an adult.

“If you’d like.” Garak said. “I could make a more appropriate, and child sized version. Priced a bit more reasonably as well, of course.”

Keiko made the mistake of looking at Molly who had apparently been working on her puppy dog eyes. Oh dear. Miles was _not_ going to last long. She looked back at Garak. “We’ll see. For now, I’ll just bring her home.”

Garak gave a little bow. “Of course.”

“Get your stuff Molly.” Molly nodded and gathered her things. Garak spoke to Keiko once more.

“Since I’m sure you wish to know some of the more boring aspects of her stay, she did take a nap a couple hours ago. There was also a lunch of onigiri, though there were some complaints that the replicator’s quality was not yours.”

Keiko laughed. “No, it isn’t. I vaguely remember Miles putting in some Japanese recipes, but it’s not quite the same.”

Molly walked up with her bag, looking ready to go. “Mr. Garak needs to try _your_ onigiri. You make it better than some stupid machine.”

“We’ll see.” Keiko said. She took hold of Molly’s hand. “Have a good day Mr. Garak. Thanks so much for watching her.”

“Bye Mr. Garak!”

“Just Garak, my dear.” He said. “Have a good day as well.”

As Keiko walked out with a skipping Molly, she felt pretty good. There was a slight feeling, a sixth sense almost, giving a slight warning of danger regarding the man. And perhaps it was there for good reason. Yet none of that danger seemed directed at her or Molly. More a general sense. She’d keep an eye on things, but it seemed at the very least Garak wasn’t a bad option for a babysitter. Though it definitely seemed as though Molly wouldn’t be quiet about fairies for a _long_ time.


End file.
